“I love how you feel inside me,” I say, kissing his top lip.
He grips my hips, playfully nipping back at my lips. “Maybe I should just stay here forever.”
“I think I’d like that,” I say through my shaky breaths as I approach my release.
When I succumb to the waves of pleasure, he rolls us over, and the padded headboard taps the wall like a mallet against a bass drum.
“June …” he moans while releasing. His body a deadweight on mine like a security blanket.
I hug him with my arms and legs, our bodies hot and sweaty like we’ve melded together.
“We need a shower,” I say with a giggle. “But I don’t want to let you go yet, so …” I nibble his earlobe.
“Then just hold on,” he says.
“What are you doing?” I squeal as he climbs off the bed with me hugged to him.
He opens the door and walks across the hall to the bathroom.
“Nooo! Ew … I’m eating my takeout,” Ally says.
I give her a wrinkle-nosed grin over Flynn’s shoulder as he offers her an unobstructed view of his naked backside for several seconds before shutting the bathroom door behind us.
This is what it feels like when all the notes just … hit.
When the music isn’t being played. It’s playing you.
The water envelops us like a rare, late summer rain shower on a warm beach in Southern California.
My giggles.
His grin.
The long glances and even longer kisses.
We wrap up in white fluffy towels, and he lifts me onto the vanity.
And …
He. Combs. My. Hair.
Flynn hasn’t dated. I haven’t had a serious boyfriend. But I have friends, and I know this isn’t normal. Does he? I’m not telling him.
“Have you ever hoped for something great to happen just to make sense of all the bad stuff?” I ask. “Not to make up for it, just tomake senseof it?”
Flynn gently works the comb through my hair, using his free hand to take the tension off my scalp while freeing it from any tangles. He’s a natural.
“Hoped? No. But here I am, exactly where I never knew I wanted to be.” He pauses his hands and looks at me. “And regretting anything in my past is no longer an option.”
“I don’t know if regret is the right word.”
“No?” He continues combing my hair.
“Regret implies you had control over it. Don’t you feel like the bad things that happened to you were out of your control?”
His brow tightens. “Some of it. But I’ve done things I should not have.”
“But don’t you feel like you did them because you were trying to protect yourself or someone else?”
